But it veered for a time into a discussion of Connecticut Statute 8-30g.

This controversial regulation was intended to diversify the state's housing stock and create more affordable units in towns that lack them.

But to the consternation of town officials throughout the state, it has allowed developers a way to propose projects that are hard to stop.

As the law is now written, 8-30g applications reverse the ordinary regulatory process. Instead of developers having to prove why the housing should be built, the onus is on a town to prove why it shouldn't

In recent years, the town has been overwhelmed by such applications.`

"I've talked to other towns," said Rebecca Mucchetti, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission. "No other town is seeing what we're seeing. At one point, we had four 8-30g applications in a three-block radius."

But Amy Siebert, chairman of the town's Water Pollution Control Authority, said trying to limit use of the town's sewer system to check such development raises problems of its own. Moratoriums mean no to everyone, she said.

"If a restaurant came along and it was desirable, you still couldn't give it a permit," Seibert said. "If the library was building an expansion, you'd have to say no to the library."

However Selectman Di Masters pointed out that if a developer tried to build a project that added significantly to the flow into one of the town's sewer plants, that might be a reason to deny the request.

"We are not obligated to add more to our plant," she said.

The discussion of the town's future will be ongoing as part of the 20-year study of the sewer system. The study is looking at development and needs.

Planning and Zoning Commission member John Katz said the study will not look at expanding the existing sewer districts.

"Absolutely not," he said.

The study will also look at upgrades the town's two sewer plants may need.

The plant on South Street was built in the 1970s, but upgraded in 1992. A smaller plant that serves sewer customers along Route 7 was built in 1984.

John Pearson, of Aecom, the company preparing the study, said much of the equipment in sewage treatment plants has about a 20-year life span. The chemicals such plants use are corrosive enough to wear out many parts.

Therefore, he said, both plants are due for an upgrade.

"It's like a car," Pearson said. "You can still use it with 200,000 or 300,000 miles on it, but the reliability goes way down."

The study is also looking at ways to reduce flow into the South Street system, both by mending leaking pipes and getting homes to disconnect things like illegal sump pumps from the system.

Siebert said right now the WBCA prefers to work with homeowners to end such connections, rather that punish them.

"It's very expensive," she said of the cost of routing a sump pump to an outside dry well. "I don't think we want to fine people on top of that."